


exit()

by glitterandgin



Category: Bastion (Video Game), Transistor (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Evacuation Ending (Bastion), F/F, Friendship, Romance, mute Kid, the self-indulgent crossover fic nobody asked for, you can pry neurodivergent sybil from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-23 06:49:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10714368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterandgin/pseuds/glitterandgin
Summary: After the events at the Empty Set, Sybil finds herself stranded in a strange land with a woman who sounds like Red.





	1. Chapter 1

The Country. Sybil had tried not to think about it--had probably spent more time studiously _not_ thinking about it than actually considering it--but when she’d let herself imagine what it might be like, she’d always thought there’d be _more_ of it. Her mind, when given the opportunity, always conjured endless waves of rippling golden wheat and a sky so blue it’d make her eyes ache if she looked at it too long. Not… this.

She stood on a square platform of land, just barely wide enough for her to shift her weight without falling off. Far, far below--how high up was she?--the world was destroyed, as though parts of it had been cloven away. Did the Process reach the Country, too?

Tentatively, she stretched a foot forward, expecting to feel nothing but heart-dropping emptiness beneath her toes. Instead, an identical piece of land appeared in front of her. She prodded it with her parasol; it didn’t budge. For lack of other options, she stepped onto it.

The pattern continued, the ground forming just enough for her to take another step forward each time, until at last she arrived at solid ground. Solid, empty ground. There was an abundance of foliage, but the world was silent. She strained her ears, hoping to hear some sign of life, but it didn't come. No matter how tightly she clutched her parasol, she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. Where was everyone? _Gone, gone gone gone, they’re all gone and it’s your fault, your fault, all your--_

Wait. That was music. Some twangy string instrument, and… singing? No, not that voice. Not that voice, that voice, she _saved_ her. What was she doing here? Uncaring of the dirt and sap that stained her dress, she charged through the foliage and towards the sound.

The singer--not Red, definitely not Red, was this hole in her gut from relief or disappointment?--turned as Sybil half-sprinted, half-stumbled into the clearing. She furrowed her dark eyebrows and said, “Are you lost?”

Sybil realized what a sight she must make--hair and eyes wild, breath ragged, her dress in an unspeakable state--and took a moment to pick the visible twigs from her hair and fix her hat. Questions churned through her mind, breaking down into new ones that split off into subtrees upon subtrees of queries. But instead of voicing any of them, she blurted out, “You’re not from Cloudbank.”

“What?” That was Red’s voice. Sybil knew that voice by heart, had fallen asleep with the memory of it as her lullaby ever since she’d first heard it. But this woman wasn’t Red, couldn't be Red. What was going on?

“You can’t be. I know _everyone_ in Cloudbank,” she said, gritting her teeth as she remembered That Man. Mr. Nobody, she decided for the umpteenth time, didn’t count. She forced the tension out of her jaw and said, “Everyone. Who are you? Where are you from? How did you get to the Country?”

“The Country?” the woman stood, her bright clothes rustling. “This is Caelondia. Or what’s left of it, I guess. What’s Cloudbank?”

Sybil sank to the ground, more exhausted than she could remember being in her life. Rubbing the space between her eyebrows, she said, “It’s--it was my home. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

The woman crouched by Sybil’s side, her dark eyes soft but serious. She smelled like woodsmoke and lavender. “You can’t go back?”

Sybil shook her head, staying silent in hopes that somehow it’d keep the tears prickling at the corners of her eyes from escaping. It didn't work.

“Well… it’s not safe to stay out here. We only stopped to gather supplies from the old outpost. You’re welcome to come back to the Bastion with me, if you want.” Her tone was sad, but subdued, like the pain from an old wound. “I know a bit about not being able to go home.”

Sybil considered her options. If this wasn’t the Country, then all bets were off. She was stranded in a strange world, and for all she knew, Cloudbank had already been destroyed. Quietly, so her voice wouldn’t crack, she said, “I’d like that.”

The woman extended a hand to help her up. “I’m Zia.”

“Sybil.”

Zia smiled and squeezed Sybil’s hand, and the action sent liquid fire running through Sybil’s bones. “Welcome aboard, Sybil.”


	2. Chapter 2

“You found a survivor?”

Sybil froze mid-step, anger-fear- _ loathing _ tinting her vision red and burning in her throat until there was no room for oxygen. She forced it down until it mingled with the bile in her stomach and turned, as prepared as she could be to see  _ him _ again. Instead, an old man with an immaculately-groomed moustache and hair whiter than Grant’s (No. Don't think about Grant. She couldn't, wouldn't think about the others. Not yet. Maybe not ever) sat in front of a tent. She turned her lip-curl into a full, if fake, smile and said, “In a way.”

“This is Sybil,” Zia said, taking Sybil’s hand again for no apparent reason. Sybil’s heart stuttered, only calming after Zia had squeezed her hand and released it. “We found each other in the wilds. Sybil, this is Rucks.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Sybil said, keeping her tone light but neutral. There was no reason to hate this perfect stranger, but his voice was like silverware clattering and scraping together. It immediately raised her hackles. “Zia tells me you invented this… the Bastion.”

Rucks chuckled, his humility as forced as Sybil’s smile. “I might’ve dreamt it up. Me and men smarter than me. But the Kid’s the one deserves praise for making it.”

“Oh,” Sybil said, twirling her parasol as the conversation faded away. After a tangible pause, she said, “It’s very impressive.”

“Thank you kindly.” Rucks took a swig from a hip flask and said, “Make sure you save some of those compliments for the Kid. And there he is, right on time.”

_ Thump _ . A body landed on the Bastion face-down with enough force to shake the ground. Sybil yelped. Either Zia and Rucks were actually unphased, or they had the best poker faces in existence. 

“Is he all right? Does this happen a lot?”

“Whenever he travels, so… yes,” Zia said, a current of amusement running underneath her words. She placed a hand on Sybil’s shoulder, and Sybil instinctively turned towards her like a flower getting its first taste of sunlight. “It’s my turn to cook tonight. Would you mind keeping me company?”

Sybil’s cheeks warmed, and a collection of nonsensical phonemes tumbled out of her mouth before she said, “Oh! I--not at all.”

She followed Zia over to the stockpot, hesitating for half a minute before taking a seat on a relatively clean log nearby. Even the most optimistic person would have trouble describing her dress as anything better than a lost cause by this point. 

Zia hummed as she began chopping the ingredients, none of which resembled any food Sybil had seen in her life, including the toppings on Junction Jan’s “Mystery Jan’s” flatbread. 

Sybil pointed to one of them, a green sphere covered in conical protrusions. “What is that?”

“This?” Zia said, picking it up. “It’s a vineapple. You don’t have those in Cloudbank?”

“If we did, nobody’s voted for them in a long time,” Sybil said, leaning forward to inspect it more closely. “I’ve never even seen them on the ballots.”

Zia held it out to her. “Want to hold it?”

Sybil moved to grab it, then froze, paralyzed by the spectre of anxiety that trailed at her heels, always always always watching, waiting to sink its teeth in the moment she let her guard down. She kicked it as far into the back of her mind as she could and took the produce. Aside from the protrusions, the skin was smooth and supple, just barely giving when she applied pressure. She handed it back to Zia, who resumed chopping the ingredients and humming.

“Your voice is beautiful.” Sybil winced, realizing she’d said the same thing to Red at the new artists reception. Red had smiled, thanked her, and disappeared into the crowd, leaving her feeling off-kilter ever since. Sybil often wondered if she’d ever regain her equilibrium.

“You’re too sweet,” Zia said, tilting her head down and smiling. Her cheeks were flushed, though Sybil couldn’t tell if it was from the compliment or Zia’s proximity to the cooking fire. 

“I mean it. Your voice sounds like home,” Sybil said. The words didn’t come from her heart. They came from somewhere deeper--the base of her spine, perhaps--where immutable truths were stored and protected from something as changeable as the heart’s desires. She hoped Zia could tell the difference.

Zia’s blush deepened. She stammered, “Dinner should be ready now. I’ll go tell the others.”

She bustled off, leaving Sybil to fret over whether she’d said the wrong thing. She got her answer after dinner, when she was helping Zia wash the dishes. 

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” Sybil said, her eyes glued to the already spotless bowl. She kept scrubbing it, if only to keep from tugging at her hair: a nervous habit she’d never outgrown. 

Zia dropped her dishrag into the washbasin, splashing them both with soapy water. “You didn’t. I was just surprised, I guess.”

“Why would you be surprised?” Sybil said, drying her bowl and turning to face Zia. “I’d think you’d be used to people praising your voice.”

Zia laughed, a hollow sound that broke even the smallest pieces of Sybil’s heart. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

Zia chewed her lower lip for a second before saying, “What was Cloudbank like?”

Sybil paused, her voice temporarily replaced by a sorrow as deep and unpotable as the ocean. She swallowed and said, “Everything was chosen by popular vote. The buildings, the color of the sky--everything. It was chaos. Nothing stayed; nothing mattered. You’d work so hard to build something  _ good _ , really good for  _ everyone _ , and it was voted away the next week. Like it never existed. But it could’ve been so  _ perfect. _ ” 

“What happened?” Zia said. Her curiosity was replaced by horror a second later, and she added, “You don’t--if it’s too soon, you don’t have to answer.”

Sybil tugged on her hair, pulling until her scalp burned before letting go for a second and repeating the action. “We tried to make it perfect. We tried to save Cloudbank from itself, and destroyed it faster than any vote could.”

She gestured to the land below the Bastion. The setting sun cast a deep red tint over everything, as though the splintered land was bleeding from its fissures. “Is that what happened here?”

Zia sighed. “In a way. The way Rucks tells it, the Calamity wasn’t supposed to happen unless we had no other choice. But people with weapons always find an excuse to use them, don’t they?”

A thought like wet seaweed slithered from her brain down her throat to settle cold and slimy in her gut. How easy had it been to find excuses to target citizens of Cloudbank? No matter how much she swallowed, the feeling wouldn’t leave. Sybil nodded, hoping Zia wouldn’t press for a longer answer.

“I’m sorry about what happened to Cloudbank,” Zia said, washing the last dish and setting it down to dry. “But… for what it’s worth, I’m happy you’re here.”

Sybil hesitated for barely a second before saying, “I’m happy I’m here, too.”

And that night, as she stared up at the stars, she realized she really meant it. 


	3. Chapter 3

She was alone now, alone as the world broke apart around and under her, alone as the Process reached her. She’d never been a fighter; her tendency to stutter and cry during arguments only made it easier for others to mock her. She could knock a few away with her parasol, but it was like trying to drain the Goldwalk River with a teaspoon. As the Process swarmed around her, Sybil turned to face Red’s concert poster.  _ I saved you, saved you, saved you... I  _ won’t _ save you. _

She clutched onto Red's song like a mental liferaft, the lyrics cutting through the increasingly bright emptiness of her mind until she was reduced to those words.  _ I won’t save you, won’t save you, won’t-- _

Sybil woke with a gasp. She ran her hands over her face, and they came away damp. She took a deep, shaky breath and hastily crawled out of her makeshift tent. The stars, already dim and distant, were barely visible as tears and sleep clouded her vision.  She closed her eyes.  _ Breathe, Sybil. _ How many times had Grant said that, when the words tripped over themselves and formed a dam between her brain and her tongue? 

She buried her hands in the roots of her hair and  _ pulled  _ until the panic that burned in her muscles abated. When she extracted her hands from her hair, several loose strands were woven through her fingers. She half-laughed, half-sobbed. It'd been years since that had happened.

She opened her eyes, and she wasn’t alone. How long had the Kid stood next to her? Why hadn’t she heard him approach?

He handed her a notebook, already open to a page with one meticulously written word on it.  _ Nightmare? _

Sybil read the note and nodded. 

The Kid held his hand out for the notebook. He clutched the pen in his fist, nearly tearing through the paper as he carved out each letter. 

_ Zia says your home was destroyed _

“It was,” Sybil said, feeling slightly foolish for being the only one speaking aloud. 

_ The nightmare was about that? _

“Yes,” she said, letting the wind snatch the response from the tip of her tongue. “Does it ever get easier?”

The Kid shrugged, tilting his head up to look at the sky, face pensive. His breathing slowed each time he exhaled, like each inhalation sapped more and more precious energy until the act of breathing would eventually become too much for him. He grit his teeth and tore his gaze away from the sky before scribbling another message on the paper.

_ It’s easier when you’re not alone. _

“Thanks,” she said as he walked back to his blue-and-yellow striped tent. 

When she was certain nobody else was awake, she crept to the edge of the Bastion and peered down, expecting and seeing nothing. She should have--knew that in the past,  _ would _ have--feared that, but instead she found it oddly comforting, like the space between stars. She didn’t know how long she spent staring into a void so vast it looped around and gained physical presence, but she only returned to her tent when her eyelids hung heavy and falling over the Bastion’s edge became a real danger. Any dreams that came afterwards were forgotten with little difficulty and even less remorse.

Zia was already awake and about when Sybil exited the tent. 

“Hey. Did you sleep all right?”

If the sunlight hadn’t evaporated the remnants of Sybil’s nightmares, Zia’s smile certainly did. Sybil smiled, not quite making eye contact, and said, “Better than I expected. Did you?”

Zia nodded, letting the conversation slip into silence. Then, just as Sybil was beginning to wonder if she’d said something wrong-- _ how _ could she have messed up such a simple conversation?--Zia said, “Are you busy? I’d like to show you around.”

A laugh bubbled out of Sybil, an expression of relief more than amusement. She stifled it with the back of her hand, waited until it subsided, and said, “Lead the way.”

Zia placed a hand on Sybil’s shoulder as she guided her to one of the buildings sat along the Bastion’s perimeter. It was constructed from long logs stacked on top of each other, and the roof was a plain length of cotton fabric. Had they run out of wood, or was that Caelondia’s architectural standard? She’d have to ask Zia about that later. 

“It’s the lost-and-found,” Zia said, pausing just outside of the threshold. “I thought maybe you’d like to look through it, to get a sense of what Caelondia was like... before. It’s not the same as being there, but it’s the closest we have nowadays.”

“I’d love that,” Sybil said, shocking herself with how earnest the sentiment was. In a way, it shouldn’t have been a surprise--wasn’t that her only skill in the academy, taking interest in other students’ passions? But even beyond the fact that it was obviously important to Zia, the desire to know and understand thrummed in Sybil’s ribcage like a second heartbeat. 

Zia’s smile was pale and sad, like sunlight trickling through a thick forest canopy, as they stepped into the lost-and-found. The layout wasn’t anything extraordinary--the smaller mementos sat on wooden shelves that lined the walls, while several large stone statues sat on the wooden floor. 

The curiosity in Sybil’s chest morphed into a heavy ache that weighed on her ribs until she thought she could hear them creak.  _ This was all that remained of an entire city, maybe their entire world--would anything be left of Cloudbank?  _ She walked over to inspect one of the statues, which depicted a young woman bound and shackled at her wrists and ankles. Taking care not to touch it as she pointed, she said, “What’s this a statue of?”

“That’s Acobi, one of the pantheon,” Zia said. In the voice people used when reciting excerpts from lessons long ago, she added, “Goddess of oath and abandon.”

“Both of those?” Sybil leaned forward to inspect the statue further. Acobi stared back at her, serene in her chains. “How can she represent both of those?”

“I asked Zulf that once,” Zia said, moving to stand beside Sybil. A light breeze blew through the windows, and her hair tickled Sybil’s arm. “He was raised in Ura culture, so he knows more about the gods than the rest of us. The pantheon were just pretty decorations in Caelondia, for the most part. 

He said that thinking of them as representing a spectrum, instead of two different things, makes more sense. Like Jevel--health and sickness. Most people aren’t completely healthy or sick; they’re somewhere in-between.”

“Oh. All right,” Sybil said, painfully aware of how close they were sitting. Out of both curiosity and a desire to distract herself from the way her nerves sang when Zia shifted closer, she asked, “Who’s Zulf?”

“You haven’t met him yet?” Zia frowned a little, but the expression blew away with the next gust of wind. “He was a missionary, from the Tazal Terminals--that’s where the Ura lived before the Calamity. He mostly keeps to himself these days, but you’ll run into him sooner or later.”

The Kid rushed in, moving so quickly he seemed to trip over his own feet and roll over to them. He pulled out his notebook and scribbled a message before handing it to Zia. 

Her tongue poked out between her teeth as she read the note. She looked up, dark eyes sparkling with mirth. “Sorry, Sybil. The anklegator’s bothering Rucks again. Can we finish the tour later?”

Sybil stood, looking down and dusting off her skirt until she'd convinced herself she wasn't being abandoned. This wasn't the academy. Zia _wanted_ to spend time with her. “Um... yeah, definitely. Good luck with the anklegator.”

"Thanks, Syb! See you soon, promise!"

She watched as Zia half-ran, half-skipped out of the building, unable and unwilling to suppress her fond smile. When she looked away once Zia was no longer visible, the Kid was studying her with an expression of mild amusement. Not for the first time, Sybil wished she didn’t blush so easily.

The corners of his eyes crinkled further, and he jotted down another note.

_ Like I said, it’s easier when you’re not alone. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, it's been a while since I updated this. I just want to give special thanks to windychimes--your latest comment is actually what inspired me to get off my butt and keep writing this, and I don't know if I can fully express how much I needed that. :)

**Author's Note:**

> So much of my understanding of Sybil's characterization comes from "preprocess()" by pseudocitrus. If you haven't read it yet, it's definitely worth checking out!
> 
> I'm also gonna be entirely honest and say that I spent maybe five minutes reading up on coding to come up with a title. So if anyone has a better suggestion for it, please let me know!


End file.
